Mapplethorpe gets top billing at LACMA and the Getty’s twin retrospective, ‘Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium’, exploring the work of one of the most influential visual artists of the late 20th century.

Twenty-five years ago, Robert Mapplethorpe’s exhibition ‘The Perfect Moment’, which included his famous X portfolio, received a very different reception. Gay S&M isn't for everyone, I grant you, but when the exhibit hit Cincinnati in 1990, all hell broke loose. Local law-enforcement officials and anti-pornography groups took it upon themselves to rise up against the exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Center.

The Mapplethorpe obscenity trial—the first time a museum was taken to court on criminal charges related to works on display—became one of the most heated battlefronts in the era’s culture wars. Taking place over two weeks in the fall of 1990, the resulting attention challenged perceptions of art, public funding, and what constituted “obscenity.” To give you some cultural context, this is the same year that Linda, Christy and Naomi stepped in for a (then) closeted George Michael in his iconic 'Freedom' vid (a full 8 years before George was arrested for a ‘lewd act’ in a Beverly Hills toilet incidentally).

At the time the body was a contentious subject. From the craze for physical fitness to heated debates about reproductive health, pornography and the AIDS epidemic, the 80s had been marked by a heightened pre-occupation with bodies and sex. The artist himself had died of AIDS related illness in 1989.

A quarter century on, an organized minority is still trying to enforce their worldview on America. Conservative Republican governors have introduced ‘religious freedom’ laws to ‘protect’ a ‘vulnerable religious minority’ in Mississippi and N. Carolina. This is a deft use of Orwellian Newspeak. In the upside down South, the bully is now the minority, and freedom is now being touted as a smokescreen for discrimination.

In the summer of 1989, Mapplethorpe’s traveling solo exhibit sparked a national debate about whether tax dollars should be used to support potentially "obscene" material. It's interesting to see how sexual politics and money intersect in 2016: tech companies are condemning Mississippi and N. Carolina’s anti gay laws, which are in part a revolt against the legalization of same sex marriage last summer. That the gay movement is now so cozy with corporations is progress, I guess, especially given that it is still possible to be fired for being gay or transgender in 28 states. That’s right, you can lose your job, your ability to support yourself, for being homosexual. The war is still being waged, and we stand on the shoulders of giants like Mapplethorpe who fought our battles long before it made financial sense for corporate giants to stick up for us.

“Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium” at the Getty Center and LACMA until July 31; lacma.org, getty.edu. Listen to my report on Monocle24 here